It’s still up for debate whether St. Helena Unified School District is getting the short end of the stick when it comes to property tax funding.

Why the conflict? Officials at the Napa County Office of Education and St. Helena Unified School District disagree over which entity is entitled to Howell Mountain and Pope Valley property tax proceeds.

Because SHUSD educates about five dozen Pope Valley and Howell Mountain students at St. Helena High School, officials at the Upvalley district say they are due the money.

But officials at NCOE — the recipient of the funds for decades — see things differently.

“This notion that there is a high school tuition (tax) is wrong,” NCOE Superintendent Barbara Nemko said. “The notion that funding must follow the child is incorrect.”

The situation changed in 1994, she said, when St. Helena became a Basic Aid district, meaning it received all of its funding from property taxes instead of the state. As a result, she said, St. Helena stopped receiving state payments for educating the students living in Pope Valley and Howell Mountain who were attending St. Helena High School.

“The St. Helena Unified School District officials base their belief on an obsolete law that disappeared almost 30 years ago, when school funding was based primarily on property taxes,” Nemko wrote in a recent Register letter to the editor. “In 1978, following the passage of Proposition 13, the state took over the allocation of local property taxes, a move that has never been rescinded.”

Nemko said that NCOE recently turned to the Fiscal Crisis Management and Assistance Team — an agency created out of state legislation — for a third-party legal opinion on the issue.

“The legal opinion is no, they aren’t (entitled) to that money, period,” Nemko said, adding that SHUSD funds its students at about twice the rate of most California school districts.

Because Upvalley housing growth could be on the way, for example with the possible approval of the Angwin eco-village, Nemko said SHUSD officials may be trying to secure the funding in anticipation of a growing student body.

Upvalley view

But if you ask Jim Haslip, a member of the SHUSD board of trustees, that is not the issue.

Haslip said that parents of Pope Valley and Howell Mountain students need to have some degree of control over where their property tax dollars end up.

“If it should be following our kids, it should be following our kids. ... Taxation without representation is the essence of what’s going on with (Pope Valley and Howell Mountain) families,” he said. “This is the real issue that needs to be resolved.”

Haslip added that St. Helena Superintendent Allan Gordon — who could not be reached through his office by press time — is “exploring a number or solutions through the state” regarding which entity is due the property tax proceeds.

In a recent Register letter to the editor, SHUSD Trustee Cindy Warren said the fact that Nemko’s office receives the funds is unfair to Howell Mountain and Pope Valley taxpayers.

“The winner is the Napa County Office of Education, which receives tax dollars to educate high school students that they do not educate. St. Helena’s solution is very simple; the money should follow the students,” she wrote.

Nemko said that more is spent each year on St. Helena students than on students in almost 95 percent of California’s school districts.

Citing afterschool, vocational and other programs, Nemko also said the county office serves nearly 5,000 students annually, compared to St. Helena’s 1,375.

“We are a fiscal watchdog. ... As such, how could I enrich one of the richest districts in this county at the expense of the taxpayer?” she asked.